Chapter 041

Chapter 41: A Free Doll

Yu Sheng stood there, dazed. When he saw Irene go limp and crash to the floor, he had even thought she had died because the shell was low quality. Luckily her voice from behind broke that scary thought. [For a second I thought she was gone.]

Holding Irene’s shell, he raised his head and looked at the worktable where he had been molding the clay.

The classical oil painting with the fancy frame leaned quietly against the table. Inside the painting, Irene stared wide-eyed, looking this way in a panic.

“I… I don’t know what happened!” The moment she saw Yu Sheng looking at her, Irene waved her hands hard and said: “One second I was running, and when I blinked I was already back here. What’s going on, this…”

A low, slightly harsh laugh came from inside the frame, like a taunt with a touch of pity.

It was the plush bear. This time Yu Sheng actually saw it laughing.

Irene’s temper couldn’t take that. She stomped over to the red velvet chair, grabbed the bear by the neck, and shook it hard: “You’re laughing! You’re laughing! Did you do this to me? I’m back in here again!”

The mindless bear couldn’t answer. It just kept giggling in her hands, which made the doll even angrier.

Yu Sheng hurried forward to calm the Miss Doll in the painting: “Hey, don’t get so worked up. Let’s think this through…”

He was only halfway through when the Irene in the painting vanished. The shell in his hands jerked to life, and the 66.6 cm figure pounced on his arm, her momentum carrying her into an attempted chokehold, then an attempted shoulder throw, then an attempted armbar.

Her strength, though, was very real, and the choke made his arm throb.

Yu Sheng had to pry Irene off his arm and hold her up in front of his face, shaking her gently: “Wake up, wake up. It’s me, Yu Sheng. You’re out again.”

Irene blinked, hovered there in confusion, then raised her head to look around. Her gaze finally settled on Yu Sheng’s face: “…Huh?”

Together they looked at the frame, both stunned and thinking hard.

A moment later, Yu Sheng quietly backed away while holding Irene. He kept retreating until he reached the spot where she had fallen a moment ago. As he took the last step, the body in his hands went limp like a powerless toy, all life gone.

Irene’s figure flashed back into the painting. She glanced around and looked up at Yu Sheng, dazed: “I’m back again, so it really…”

Yu Sheng raised the limp shell toward the painting so the two were close.

The body snapped back to life as if it had never shut down. Irene’s voice came from it, picking up the sentence she hadn’t finished in the painting: “…is a distance problem?”

“Seems like it,” Yu Sheng said, frowning. He pulled the doll away again, and the shell went limp while Irene’s voice came from the painting: “Then this is…”

Yu Sheng pushed the shell forward again.

“…kind of a pain,” Irene finished, then snapped: “Can you stop playing! I try to say one sentence and you cut me into pieces three times!”

Looking a little sheepish, Yu Sheng brought Irene close to the painting and explained: “I mainly want to confirm how far your ‘signal’ reaches.”

“What’s the difference between five or six meters? At most it’s only a couple of steps!” Irene flailed while dangling by her collar, then suddenly felt something was wrong. She glared up at Yu Sheng: “Put me down! Why are you still holding me by the collar!”

Yu Sheng set the Miss Doll on the floor at once, and the two of them stared at each other.

Only then did Irene realize she had to tilt her head almost straight back to talk to him.

Her pride would not allow Yu Sheng to squat down to her level. Besides, even if he did, she would still have to look up.

“Stand still,” the doll ordered.

Yu Sheng blinked: “What are you doing?”

He found out a second later. Irene hugged his leg and started climbing, just like climbing a tree. In a couple of quick moves she zipped up and sat on his shoulder.

Yu Sheng froze and didn’t dare move, afraid to knock her off: “I didn’t agree to this…”

“You didn’t ask whether I agreed when you were ‘testing the signal’ just now,” Irene said boldly.

Yu Sheng had no answer.

They returned to the big table to study the painting.

“I really am out. I can feel it. My soul is inside this body now,” Irene said, frowning at the prison that had held her. “But…”

“But from what we can see, the painting is still your root. This body is basically being remote controlled. If you go too far, the connection drops,” Yu Sheng said bluntly.

Irene lowered her head, looking very down. This time she didn’t cry. Maybe the string of shocks had built up a kind of numb resistance.

Seeing the doll so calm made Yu Sheng panic instead. He rushed to comfort her: “Don’t be too negative. Maybe this body just isn’t good enough. I’ll practice more, and next time when we rebuild…”

“Tell me something,” Irene suddenly cut in, her face very hard to read. “If I carry my own prison everywhere I go, is that a jailbreak or not?”

Yu Sheng stared, thought for a moment, and said: “I once read about someone who carried his prison around. It ended badly. But he was still inside it. You’re at least outside.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Irene muttered. She hopped off his shoulder onto the table, walked to the painting that sealed her, grabbed the frame, lifted it a little, set it down, then turned around and tried to put it on her back.

The painting was big. Yu Sheng could lift it with one hand, but for Irene it was almost as tall as she was.

“Do you have any rope?” the doll asked, looking up.

“Yes!” Yu Sheng nodded at once. “Wait right here. I’ll get it!”

Ten minutes later, Irene watched Yu Sheng tie careful knots on the oil painting frame and adjust the loops. When everything looked ready, she stepped up and said: “I think it’s good.”

“Give it a try,” Yu Sheng said, standing the frame upright while Irene slid her arms through the straps a bit clumsily. “How is it? Are the loops in the right place? Tighten more?”

Irene tugged the shoulder loops, then walked two circles on the tabletop with the frame on her back. She nodded, satisfied: “No need. It fits great.”

“Heavy?”

“Not at all. I’m very strong!” Irene said, bouncing in place with the frame on her back. Then she started jogging laps along the table’s edge.

A tiny doll (66.6 cm) running around with a frame almost as tall as herself on her back looked… a little strange.

But Yu Sheng watched and began to smile.

Because Irene was smiling too. She had shaken off her bad mood and was getting happy again.

She was even more optimistic than he had imagined. [She really bounces back fast.]

“It’s actually pretty light!” Irene stopped at the edge and grinned at Yu Sheng: “This will solve the distance limit. I’m so smart!”

“You really are optimistic,” Yu Sheng said with feeling. “I thought you’d be upset for a long while.”

“You have to look forward. Dolls do too,” Irene said. She hopped down, climbed along Yu Sheng’s arm to his shoulder again, a little slower this time so the frame wouldn’t bump the chair or his head. “Compared to before, at least I can move freely. If I have to carry it, I’ll carry it. The thing in the painting doesn’t seem to want me too far away anyway. Come on, let’s go downstairs. You haven’t eaten dinner yet. I want to watch TV!”

Yu Sheng tilted his face and, out of the corner of his eye, looked at the doll on his shoulder who wore a bright smile and seemed full of hope for the future.

“Okay, let’s cook,” he said, lifting a hand to steady Irene as he rose from the chair. “Then tonight we’ll start studying the passage back to the Valley.”

“Mm,” Irene said, full of fight. She raised her hand and pointed forward with a big grin: “Giddy-up!”

Yu Sheng instinctively picked the little doll off his shoulder: “I’ll throw you down.”

Irene immediately tucked in: “Don’t, don’t. I was just riding the vibe.”

Yu Sheng shook his head, laughing, and set the doll back on his shoulder. He started walking.

Outside, night had fully fallen. In the old district, the streetlights came on one after another. Their soft, warm glow flowed through the old alleys and drifted in through the window, filling the room with quiet.

“Yu Sheng, it’s completely dark out,” Irene said.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Hehe, I’m kind of excited,” she said.

“Excited about what? The dark?” he asked.

“No. Just excited. It has nothing to do with the dark,” she said.

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“Tch,” she muttered.